


a dream that feels so real to me

by greyhavensking



Series: Night at the Smithsonian [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Night at the Museum, But also, Cosmic Cube, Established Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, How Do I Tag, Light Angst, M/M, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Steve and Bucky both are and not the Steve and Bucky we all know and love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyhavensking/pseuds/greyhavensking
Summary: “What I’m driving at,” Steve says, tightening his grip on Bucky’s hand the same time he presses into his shoulder, giving him something solid to lean against, “is that those aren’t my favorite memories of you.”That gets Bucky’s mask to crack a little, curiosity bleeding through the fracture lines. “Really? ‘Cause I seem to recall you’ve got a strange fondness for that one time I let Becca mess with my hair and she stuck about a hundred different ribbons and bows in it. You drew it, just so you wouldn’t ever forget the look on my face when I caught sight of myself in a mirror.”Steve snorts, very much ignoring the daggers Bucky glares at him for the response. It is a good memory, his or not, and he’s almost sad that that particular drawing didn’t make it into the exhibit. But, no, that’s not his favorite, not by a longshot.“First time I kissed you,” is all he says, eager to watch the play of emotions over Bucky’s face as he processes that.Because the first time they kissed? Happened right here in the museum.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Night at the Smithsonian [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976845
Comments: 18
Kudos: 75





	a dream that feels so real to me

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea where the hell this came from. I saw a tumblr post last night where someone had the tag "steve and bucky are mannequins" or something like that, and my brain instantly went to Night at the Museum, and then, well, this happened. I have a few more ideas I hope to write out eventually, so I'm making this a series, but I have no idea when the next part might happen. Inspiration strikes at weird times, apparently.

Working the graveyard shift at the Smithsonian is… weird. A little lonely, which he might have expected, and he’ll admit  _ boring  _ has crossed his mind a time or two, but mostly? Weird. 

This isn’t the job Scott saw for himself while he was busting his ass earning a masters in electrical engineering, but prison threw an unexpected wrench into his 10 Year Plan and took him thousands of miles away from his daughter at the same time it dashed his career prospects. Really, he’s just grateful that Maggie moved out to New York a few years ago and brought Cassie to the east coast, because he doubts he would’ve been in any position to make a living in San Francisco when he got out in February. Now, at least, he sees her every other weekend, and he and Paxton get on as well as can be expected — Maggie’s even halfway to forgiving him for getting mixed up in his Robin Hood fantasies. Things could be so much worse, which Luis reminds him almost daily, verbally and through the memes he floods Scott’s messages with.

But the night guard position. He really didn’t see that one coming.

The Smithsonian has been overhauling the Air and Space Museum for months in preparation of the Captain America exhibit they’re unveiling next week, and because the museum itself is closed during the day and there’s suddenly some very important memorabilia sitting in these halls, the night guard position became all the more important. And unfortunately, the last guy, Mr. Lee, is getting on in years and decided he couldn’t handle the strain of the extra hours and increased patrol time, which left the museum officials in a lurch.

Enter Scott, who got recommended by Luis’ cousin’s roommate’s best friend and was probably only hired because no one else wanted this particular shift, especially not when you’re entirely alone and surrounded by mannequins that cast very suspicious shadows out of the corner of your eye. Scott doesn’t blame anyone for passing on this gig — hell, he wouldn’t be here himself if he had any other option. But this keeps him relatively close to Cassie and pays decently. It’s more than he could’ve asked for and he’s just damn grateful  _ something  _ worked out for him.

Tonight’s a slow night, like every other night has been since he started here. The construction of the exhibit is more or less finished, and from what he understands the head of the project just needs to sign off on some last-minute changes before opening day. It means Scott is alone from the start of the his shift to the end of it, when the morning guard comes to relieve him and also lets in the handful of people who need access to this part of the museum before seven, when the regular crowd arrives. He found it pretty unsettling his first week here, but he’s gradually gotten used to the silence — he usually makes sure he has his phone charged and his headphones in his pocket so he can catch up on podcasts while he does his rounds. 

He’s fiddling with them now, actually, flashlight tucked under his arm as he fights to untangle the knots the cord has somehow twisted itself into. How does this even happen? He rolls them up to shove into his pocket on the way out the door and then doesn’t touch them again until he’s at the museum, and yet, every night, he has to waste five minutes to straighten them out; he’s pretty sure that’s why the one earbud cuts out every so often. Huffing out a frustrated breath, Scott gives a particularly vicious yank to the cord, and the movement jostles the flashlight from his grip. It clatters to the ground and goes rolling under the nearest exhibit, throwing wild shadows against the far wall. Scott winces; he’s glad he’s the only one here, because that’s, uh, not the first time he’s pulled a move like that. Stowing his earbuds, he drops down to his hands and knees, ducking his head to see how far under the exhibit the flashlight’s gotten.

He’s stretching out an arm for it, fingertips  _ just  _ shy of the black plastic casing, when a rustle of fabric has him whirling around, startled; his head bangs into the edge of the exhibit platform as he moves, making him hiss out a curse and press his free hand to his forehead. By the time he’s straightened up onto his knees, the rustling’s stopped, and nothing moves as Scott casts a frantic look around the hall. Directly across from him are the life-size pictures of Steve Rogers, pre- and post-serum, and across from  _ those  _ is the Bucky Barnes memorial. To the left is the row of wax mannequins kitted out in the Howling Commandos’ uniforms, along with Captain America and Sergeant Barnes.

Scratch that — just Cap. They took the Sergeant Barnes mannequin to the back room to fix something with its clothes. The jacket, maybe? Or the rifle usually slung over its shoulder. One of them, at least; Scott can’t say he was paying attention to the details once he figured out they just wanted him to be aware one of the mannequins wouldn’t be on display. Should be fixed sometime tomorrow, so whatever was wrong couldn’t have been that big of a deal.

Scott shakes his head, sighing. What he heard was probably nothing, an air vent or something kicking on. He drops back down and makes another grab for the flashlight, smiling triumphantly when his fingers close around the handle. Just to double-check, he rakes the light around the room, swinging from one display to the next, but nothing looks out of place. The only light besides his flashlight and the spotlight pointed towards the mannequins is the soft blue glow of the glass case in the middle of the room, which apparently houses shards of… something. He read the description on the case one night when he was bored, but it didn’t hold his interest the way the other exhibits did — some kind of power source Hydra used? Or were planning to use; the shards were found in the Valkyrie wreck, right alongside the  _ real  _ Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, both of them miraculously still alive under all the ice.

And wasn’t that a fucking trip? Scott’s never come closer to a heart attack than the day he heard his childhood heroes were  _ alive _ , like they hadn’t aged a single day since 1945. The thought that he could possibly meet them at some point, or even just get a look at them in real life… Cassie calls him a fanboy, and while he definitely had to look up the definition for that one, he’s gotta admit it’s an accurate descriptor.

Anyway.

Satisfied, he hops back to his feet, rubbing absently at the bump he can already feel forming on the side of his head. Cassie’ll no doubt want to play doctor when she sees him on Friday, and Scott’s already grinning thinking about it. His kid could totally be a doctor. Or an astronaut, or a princess, or a superhero, whatever she sets her mind to. As long as it’s legal, Scott will support her with everything he has — and for right now, that means keeping his job. Two more days and he’ll get to hang out with her. He can handle that, no problem; two days is  _ nothing _ . 

Scott makes one more pass around the room, then turns on his heel to start for the next hall, whistling quietly to himself and flipping his flashlight one hand to the next. He doesn’t look back once, which means he misses the subtle pulse of light from the Cosmic Cube exhibit, as well as the fact that one of the mannequins isn’t quite where it’s supposed to be…

__________

Steve is something of an expert on rescue missions at this point. Solo rescue missions are even more in his wheelhouse, which is why, as soon as the guardsman is out of the room, he signals the others to stay put as he jumps down from the platform as quietly as possible.

Dugan is, as usual, visibly annoyed with him for taking dumbass risks. Steve can see it in the twitch of his mustache and the narrowing of his eyes. But it doesn’t take much more than an elbow from Gabe and a muttered word from Falsworth for him to settle down, relaxing back into his posed stance alongside the rest of the Commandos. They won’t have to stay still for long; they clocked the guard’s route the first few nights he was here, and it hasn’t deviated much since, which means he’ll be gone to patrol the other half of the museum for the next couple hours at least. The boys’ll go off on their own to meet up with friends, and Steve can join them later, no problem — once this mission is complete, anyhow.

“Rogers!”

With a quick glance at the entrance to make sure the guard’s out of earshot (he is, of course, Steve isn’t considered a tactical genius for nothing), Steve turns back to where Dugan is scowling at him. Nothing new with that, unfortunately. 

“Yeah, Dum-Dum?” Steve says, quiet, quirking a brow even knowing Dugan won’t be able to see it under his helmet. 

His mustache twitches again, a sure sign Dugan would love nothing more than to cuff the back of Steve’s head but is restraining himself because there wouldn’t be any point and he’s well aware of it. 

“Just… don’t go overboard, kid. You know he’ll kick your ass if you get caught going after him.”

Steve grins, offering Dugan a barely-regulation salute, which promises absolutely nothing on Steve’s end. Dugan just scowls harder in response, and Steve stifles a laugh as he starts towards the exit, hugging the nearest wall and sticking to the shadows where he can.

The Captain America exhibit (which freaks Steve out to no end and gives Bucky equal amounts of amusement and indignation) continues into the next room, though this section is sparser than the one that covers the War, filled with remnants of his and Bucky’s lives in Brooklyn. Steve sometimes spends the entire night in this room, staring at sepia-toned photographs of his mother and time-weathered sketches that inspire far too much melancholy in him when they’re not really  _ his _ to begin with. 

They figured that out pretty quick, that they’re not —  _ them _ . This is a museum, and they’re meant to be on display, to showcase the history and achievements of the real Captain America and his intrepid Howling Commandos. They’re just stand-ins, really, brought to life as soon as the sun goes down and the visitors clear out. Bucky has a theory that it all has to do with the Cosmic Cube fragments they have in a case in the main room, and Steve’s inclined to agree with him; Hydra sure as hell didn’t know what they were getting into with that thing, and Steve very much doubts the museum staff are any more equipped to understand it, especially when they think it’s powerless like this, fragmented instead of whole. 

But the important part is that, beyond the Captain America exhibit, the coast is still very much clear. When Steve pokes his head in, peering out from around the side of the doorway, he sees one of the astronauts moving around the makeshift moon constructed along one wall of the room. It’s just the suit, as far as Steve knows; it took the helmet off once and scared the  _ shit  _ out of him when there was no head inside, something Bucky never lets him forget.  _ He  _ gets along with the suit — the  _ guy _ — just fine, despite the astronaut having a hard time communicating, what with not having any vocal chords to speak of. He did point out his name on the placard by his feet: Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon. Bucky practically swooned when he realized the implications of that, which is something  _ Steve  _ never lets  _ him  _ forget. 

_ Bucky _ . Right, shit, Steve’s getting distracted. 

He throws another sloppy salute Neil’s way, grinning when he returns it with a much better one of his own, then makes a beeline for the alcove behind the moon exhibit where he knows a service door is partially hidden. The door is locked, obviously, and Steve has a moment of longing for his shield, but that would be too much of a hassle, anyway; a broken door handle isn’t something he can fix on his own, and he doesn’t really want to get the night guard fired. Guy’s got a daughter to help take care of, and Steve’s overheard him talking to himself enough to know he needs this job. It’d be real shitty of Steve to let the blame for property destruction fall on his shoulders when there are other, less obtrusive ways of getting what he wants.

Steve crouches down so he’s level with the door handle, undoing a bobby pin from where it’s pinching the right shoulder of his uniform closed and bending it so it’s the right shape for lock-picking purposes. He fiddles with the lock for a few minutes, muttering under his breath when the pin nearly slips out of his hands. He sticks the pin between his teeth for a moment to strip off his gloves, then gets right back to work, and within another couple minutes he’s got the lock clicking open. Grinning, Steve redoes his shoulder pin; he knows from experience that any damage to the suit results in  _ days  _ of waking up in the repair room, and it’s something he tries to avoid whenever possible, feeling all out of sorts when he comes-to alone, without his men surrounding him.

Like Bucky must be experiencing. Right now.

His gloves get tucked into one of the compartments on his belt, on the assumption he might need a delicate touch again before the night is over, and then it’s simple to pull the door open just enough that he can slide through the gap. The hallway beyond the door is pitch black, which Steve appreciates; the motion sensor lights in other parts of the museum are annoying to out-maneuver, and they’d be a dead giveaway if the guard came back unexpectedly and saw the light spilling out from under the door. 

As it is, though, Steve can barely see even a few inches in front of his face — no supersoldier night vision for him, apparently, which makes sense but isn’t any less aggravating. And maybe he’s being petty, being jealous of his real-life counterpart who is somehow  _ alive  _ in 2014, serum and all, but, well. Steve’s never been a saint, and Bucky can wholeheartedly attest to that fact. But it hardly matters right now, so Steve shelves the thought, shaking his head a little and rolling back his shoulders to loosen the tension he can feel creeping through his upper back. Bucky first, existential crises later.

Steve makes do with keeping a hand on the wall as he moves down the corridor, counting out the doorways he passes until he hits the fifth from the entrance. Even through the door he can hear faint, emphatic curses in a voice he’d recognize any time, anywhere, and his heart speeds up a couple notches at the sound of it. Or, well, that’s what he imagines it does, anyway; he doesn’t have a physical heart, since he and the others are wax figures and therefore only need to be accurate on the surface. The fluttering in his nonexistence ribcage  _ feels  _ real, though, and it’s all the motivation he needs to make quick work of the lock on this door, too.

“Buck?” Steve calls out as soon as he’s got it open, letting it shut with a quiet  _ snick  _ behind him. In here, in a section of the museum the security guard doesn’t generally have clearance for, Steve doesn’t hesitate to flip the light switch next to the door, leaving him blinking rapidly to clear the spots from his eyes.

He finds Bucky sitting up on the low metal table that sits flush against the back wall of the room, frowning down at his shoulder, which — Steve has to blink again, sure he’s seeing things, but no, that’s Bucky’s arm, laid out on the table next to him. Not even remotely attached to his body.

“ _ Buck _ ,” he says again, even softer than before, and Bucky swings his attention to the doorway where Steve is standing. His expression shutters at first, going blank and cold like it did back in the War, but then his whole body slumps on an exhale, the worry and resignation clear in the slope of his brows and the sweeping shadows on his cheeks, his lashes low, eyes flickering between Steve and his arm.

“‘S nothing,” Bucky says, though without even a hint of sincerity lacing his voice. The fingers of his working hand curl into the cuff of his jacket, tensing and then forcibly relaxing. “Think something happened when they were bringing me in here, whenever that was. They’ll put me to rights in the morning, I figure. Don’t know why they didn’t just take the jacket off, though, seems kinda dumb to bring  _ all  _ of me when it’s only the jacket that needed fixing in the first place.” He shrugs, looking distinctly uncomfortable when his left side doesn’t move exactly how he’s expecting it to. Rolling his eyes, Bucky leans back on the table, tipping his head back to give Steve an assessing once-over, which has the inexplicable result of Steve’s skin flushing to a probably unhealthy degree. “The better question is:  _ what are you doing here, _ Rogers?”

Ah. That  _ would  _ be how Bucky redirects the conversation. Some things never change, wax mannequin or not. 

“Came to find you, jerk,” Steve says, unrepentant. “You don’t gotta worry, alright? I know the night guard’s routine better than he does, I’ve got plenty of time to get back on the platform before he sweeps our room again.” When all Bucky does is glare at him in response, Steve pushes away from the door and crosses the room to drop down onto the table beside Bucky, taking his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I wasn’t gonna leave you alone in here, you should’ve known that. Not  _ here _ , of all places,” he adds, tapping a finger against the cool metal beneath them for emphasis.

“It’s stupid,” Bucky says. “Fucking  _ stupid _ . They’re not even  _ my  _ memories, why do they hit me so hard when I’m not the one who lived through ‘em?”

“Probably the weird glowing cube in the other room working its magic, considering I’ve got a detailed memory of why I knew letting you wake up in here by yourself was about the worst thing I could do to you.” 

“Stupid,” Bucky repeats, stubborn and unyielding, the way he gets when he’s more angry with the state of the world than anything else. His hand in Steve’s is deceptively warm, and if Steve didn’t know any better, he’d think it was flesh and blood, same as the night guard. But he does know better, and as much as it confuses him, as much as he gets all twisted up over it if he thinks on it too long, this is their reality. Alive from dusk to dawn, frozen in time during the daylight hours — forced to steal moments like these when the guard’s back is turned. 

This, though, is better than the alternative, and Steve will swear by that whenever asked. A handful of hours a night with Bucky, with their friends — things could be much, much worse than that. That he gets any time with Bucky is a goddamn miracle in his eyes. Does he think the  _ real  _ Steve and Bucky got the better end of the deal, getting a second chance at full lives together in the 21st century? Yeah, of course he does. Doesn’t mean he’d change a thing about what he  _ does  _ have, here and now, for however long the Cosmic Cube deigns to keep them going.

“You know,” Steve starts, biting his cheek to stifle a grin when Bucky turns a  _ look  _ on him, already unimpressed by the conversational tone of Steve’s voice. “I have a lot of memories of you that aren’t technically mine. You at seven, skinning both knees after O’Malley shoved you down for mouthin’ off to him, gettin’ right back up to give him the nastiest shiner. You at fourteen, spending  _ hours  _ on gettin’ your hair just right ‘cause Edie from down the block finally agreed to go out with you. You at 25, looking so damn handsome in your dress uniform and dragging me out of my latest brawl.”

Bucky’s face has remained skeptical as Steve’s talked, only minute movements every now and then — wrinkling his nose over the jab at his vanity, mostly, which is downright adorable and unfair, because Steve’s making a point and he wants to get to the end of it before he does anything beyond shifting their hands to lace their fingers together.

“Is this going anywhere?” Bucky asks dryly.

“Christ,  _ yes _ , it is. Where’s your infamous sniper patience, Barnes?”

“Presumably in New York, with the  _ real  _ Bucky Barnes.”

_ For fuck’s sake _ —

“What I’m driving at,” Steve says, tightening his grip on Bucky’s hand the same time he presses into his shoulder, giving him something solid to lean against, “is that  _ those  _ aren’t my favorite memories of you.”

That gets Bucky’s mask to crack a little, curiosity bleeding through the fracture lines. “Really? ‘Cause I seem to recall you’ve got a strange fondness for that one time I let Becca mess with my hair and she stuck about a hundred different ribbons and bows in it. You  _ drew it _ , just so you wouldn’t ever forget the look on my face when I caught sight of myself in a mirror.”

Steve snorts, very much ignoring the daggers Bucky glares at him for the response. It is a good memory, his or not, and he’s almost sad that that particular drawing didn’t make it into the exhibit. But, no, that’s not his favorite, not by a longshot.

“First time I kissed you,” is all he says, eager to watch the play of emotions over Bucky’s face as he processes that.

Because the first time they kissed? Happened right here in the museum.

Bucky really runs the full gamut with this, flashing between surprise and denial, confusion and joy, his eyes blown wide by the unexpected confession. It’s a strange thing to realize, that they hadn’t done anything like that in the years they lived together, then all through the war, but it’s true. Steve thinks the timing was never right; Bucky thinks they were both just idiots. The truth of it doesn’t really matter, though; what matters is that Steve rectified his past mistakes — or, well, the past mistakes of actual Steve Rogers.

That first night was chaos. Waking up in a strange room, he and the Howlies lined up together on a dais and clutching weapons they couldn’t remember picking up. Steve’s head was filled with static as he scanned the room, looking for anything familiar and finding what must have been the universe’s idea of a joke: His face blown up to ridiculous proportions and plastered over every wall, and his life story told through random bits and bobs of his possessions. The last thing he remembered—

Except there was  _ no last thing _ . He could’ve told you, in vivid detail, the exact dimensions of the last three Hydra bases they’d cleared, the roar of laughter that drowned out the hiss and crackle of the fire the boys put together when they were reasonable sure they wouldn’t draw the enemy’s attention; he could’ve described what went down in the war room when Peggy and Phillips almost came to blows over the timeline on a scheduled raid. What he couldn’t have told you was  _ when  _ exactly any of this took place, because it could have been weeks ago, or just minutes, and to him it felt like there wasn’t even a difference. Ask him what they did for Bucky’s eighteenth birthday and he was golden; ask him what took place right before he opened his eyes that night? Couldn’t do it.

He’d been halfway to what felt an awful lot like the asthma attacks he couldn’t actually get anymore when a hand carefully clamped down on his shoulder, grounding him in the moment. He’d turned his head, knowing he must’ve looked like a caged animal, and there was Bucky, movie star perfect the way he always was when they were scheduled to be in front of the cameras for the day. Not a hair out of place, his jacket looking somehow immaculate despite Steve being  _ sure  _ there should be mud splattered across his chest, a tear in the right shoulder from a mishap while he was trying to get to higher ground. 

And Bucky was — beautiful. And obviously Steve had had that thought before, back in their Brooklyn apartment, even down in the trenches, when Bucky could’ve passed for a street urchin right out of a Dickens novel, only far more lethal. But this was different, somehow, and Steve couldn’t even begin to unravel why that was with the headspace he was in, so he didn’t bother trying just yet.

Bucky’d turned him around, taken a good, long look at him, then let his guard drop suddenly. The smile that unfurled across his face was damn near blinding, and Steve— 

Steve was in love. 

“We’re alright, Steve,” Bucky said, oblivious to the earth-shattering revelation that had just exploded in Steve’s mind. “Whatever this is, we’re alright, all of us. Take a deep breath, okay? We’ll get through this, so just breathe for a second.”

Steve breathed in, held it for far too long and coughed out the exhale. But the dizzying tightness in his chest receded with every breath he choked out, Bucky coaching him through it just like he’d done when they were younger, and all at once Steve realized whatever this was, whatever had happened to them, it could wait a minute.

“Buck.”

“Yeah, that’s me. You doing okay, Steve?”

“Uh, fine, I just—”

“Alright, you’re not  _ fine _ , that’s bullshit and we both know it. But tell me where your head’s at.”

Which was when Steve blurted out, “I love you,” and then promptly clapped both hands over his mouth, mortified.

Bucky blinked at him, taken aback. “You… what?”

“I…” Well, he’d already gone and said it, what was one more time? “I love you. I’m  _ in love  _ with you. Just, uh. Just figured that out right now.”

Another blink, slower this time. Pointed. “And you thought  _ now  _ was the best time to spill the beans about it?”

Steve could only shrug at that. It wasn’t a conscious decision on his part, he hadn’t told his mouth to open and let  _ that  _ out, it just… happened. And, strangely, Steve wasn’t even scared, not like he would’ve thought he’d be if this topic had ever come up before, which it most certainly had not. 

“Okay, then.”

“Okay?” Steve repeated, dumbly.

“Yeah.  _ Okay _ . As in, okay, fuckin’ fantastic, because I’m in love with you, too, you big lug.”

Thinking back on it, Steve  _ probably  _ should have tempered his reaction a little, seeing as how he just about lunged at Bucky and crushed their mouths together, no finesse, no charm, just the sort of desperation born of impromptu confessions under possibly dire circumstances. Bucky kissed him back, at least, which was gratifying, although Steve could’ve done without the catcalls from the other Howlies, especially when Morita yelled  _ fucking finally _ , followed by Dugan grumbling over having lost a bet to Dernier. 

They were lucky the night guard was nowhere near their room at the time, or else the jig would’ve been up before it had even really begun.

In the here and now, Bucky is giving him a look not dissimilar to the one he wore that first night, almost like he’s just gotten hit over the head with the shield. 

“Really,” is what Bucky ends up saying, the word a hesitant drawl he clearly wishes sounded more accusatory.

“‘Course, Buck. I don’t know what it was about the situation that cleared things up for me, but I’m grateful for it. Hands down  _ that  _ is my favorite memory, and it’s just mine. And yours, yeah,” he adds, laughing at the faux indignation that pinches Bucky’s brows together. “It’s  _ ours _ , that’s what I’m trying to say. I love  _ you  _ — my Bucky. Whoever these other memories belong to doesn’t matter, because we have our own, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment, his eyes flickering between Steve’s face and their still-joined hands. He takes a deep breath, lets it out in a slow, controlled exhale. Then he hops down from the table, tugging Steve to his feet right behind him.

“You’re a sap,” he says, grinning. “And I’m just as bad, which means we make a helluva pair. C’mon, though, I wanna visit Neil before morning comes.”

“Oh,  _ Neil _ , right. I just lay my heart bare for you and your first thought is that you wanna see Neil. I see how it is, Buck.”

“You’re a fucking punk. No clue why I put up with you.”

“Pretty sure it’s got something to do with how well I fill out this uniform.”

“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.”

They’re almost to the door when Steve remembers something fairly important. He glances back at the table, where Bucky’s arm is still lying, lifeless, bent as it would be when Bucky is posed during the day. Before he can open his mouth to ask what they’re doing about that, Bucky tugs at his hand again, getting his attention.

“Leave it,” he says, and while Steve can see he’s not entirely comfortable knowing a part of him is unattached to his body, he’s resigned to the facts — they’re made of wax. A severed arm for them isn’t the same as it would be a regular person, even when they’re alive like this. “I don’t wanna mess with it and make things worse for whoever has to fix me up in the morning. Wouldn’t be polite.”

“Right,” Steve says. He sets aside his own worries for the time being, knowing Bucky makes a good point. “Right, okay. Let’s go see Neil. And after that, I’m tracking down Cosmo. Still don’t know what that dog is doing here considering he was part of the Soviet space program, but damn if he isn’t the cutest thing.”

Bucky nods, mouth curled into a brilliant smile that Steve’s helpless not to return, and just as Steve is reaching over to open the door so Bucky doesn’t have to let go of his hand, Bucky leans into him, mouth right against his ear, and says, “You know it’s the same for me, right? You’re my Stevie, always.”

By the time they actually get out into the main room, Steve’s sure he’s bright red, but he doesn’t mind the teasing quips from Gabe and Dernier, or the ridiculously telling head-tilt from Neil, because he’s still holding Bucky’s hand and they have the rest of the night to be with each other. They have tomorrow, too, and the next night, and the next, and the next…

Steve may not be  _ the  _ Steve Rogers, but he’s happy right where he is. 

__________

Having his sleep schedule flipped like this must be messing with Scott’s head, he thinks, squinting up at the Captain America mannequin on his final pass through the halls before his replacement arrives. Cap always looks stern and commanding, his eyes fixed squarely ahead of him, but Scott could swear… he isn’t usually  _ smiling _ , right? 

Wrinkling his nose, Scott promises himself he’ll get some real shut-eye before he sees Cassie on Friday. The last thing he needs is Maggie thinking he’s seeing things.

Tucking away his flashlight and unplugging his earbuds, Scott turns towards the entrance, glad another uneventful night is over and done with. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/greyhavensking)


End file.
